


When The Earth Shakes (I Wanna Be Found)

by geckoholic



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 09:52:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6112861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three different times Skye and Simmons sat vigil at each other's bedside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When The Earth Shakes (I Wanna Be Found)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> So I actually started no less than three different fics for this assignment, but this is the only one that came together in time. Sometimes my brain doesn’t do what it’s told. 
> 
> Beta-read by shenshen77. Thank you! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Where I Belong" by Building 429.

Simmons is good at riddles and thrives when faced with complex tasks. She's good with problems she can solve. She can face just about anything, so long as the solution could be reached with logic and applied knowledge. 

Dealing with the near loss of someone close to her is not the sort of problem she knows how to approach. 

Skye isn't all the way healed yet, but she's also not hovering on death's door anymore. They took a risk – a wild, reckless, uncalculated risk – and for now, it seems to have worked. There are long-term effects to be considered, and Simmons knows it may fall to her to have an eye on that. That, she knows how to deal with; take samples, keep records, interpret her findings. 

_Later._ Right now, she's watching Skye joke around with Trip: they're laughing, which Skye is bitching him out for because it still hurts to pull the muscles involved, and that only makes him laugh harder. Simmons can relate, because whether it's laughter or cussing, it means Skye's _alive_ and she's _with them_ and they came so close to losing her that everything, all of it, is a blessing beyond description. 

Trip winks at her when he exits the room, wearing his joy open on his sleeve in a way Simmons wouldn't know how, and she kind of envies him. Whenever she tries to deliver comfort, she gets nervous and rambles and spouts boring details of her day in the lab instead of anything that might _actually_ be interesting to Skye, but Skye doesn't complain, and so Simmons keeps coming by. 

There's an odd look on Skye's face sometimes, faraway and pointedly focused at once, and it pulls Simmons up short, makes her fall silent and look questioningly at her friend, and then Skye will look a little caught. 

“I'm sorry,” she says, this time, and smiles. “I'm sorry, it's nothing, go on.” 

And Simmons does, because it's a simple enough request and she can do that, she can offer distraction, clumsy comfort, and she'll talk until she's out of words and her throat will be dry and parched if that's what Skye asks for. 

 

***

 

In their line of work, it can be easy to lose sight of what matters the most: the people you work _with_. Now they're one team member short and another is sitting behind thick glass, shell-shocked and wide-eyed and terrified, and Simmons wonders where they lost track, where their calculations started going wrong, what led them here. The real world is no maths equation, and all the logic in the world won't account for the sheer extent of what people are willing to inflict on one another in the name of their own agenda. 

It's so much harder this time to offer comfort. Simmons is shaken and far from okay herself, the loss of Trip warring inside her chest with the relief that Skye is still alive and seemingly unharmed, and underneath it all there's another thought, one she tries to shove aside and ignore. 

Because Skye _shouldn't_ be alive. Three people went into that cave, one of them died, the other emerged a deadly monster, and every cell in Simmons brain tells her that there is no third option. Skye's not dead, so she too must have become a monster. 

At the same time, she balks at the thought, treacherous and surreal, and every other fiber in her body insists that this is _Skye_ and Skye could never, ever be anything but human. She's always been the most human of them all, the most _real_ and she's Simmons friend, and maybe, _maybe_ , just this once all the empirical evidence is leading her astray. 

It takes mere days for her theory to prove correct, for logic to win out in the one case where Simmons wanted so badly to be wrong. But Simmons is a scientist. She should have known. 

Another couple of weeks will pass before she learns that she was right, too, and that not all monsters have to be deadly. 

 

***

 

Skye's the one sitting vigil on her bedside, after she's back from her involuntary trip across the universe and back, and Simmons finally gets it. The company someone offers you while trying to recover from shock and injury and trauma doesn't have to be excellent entertainment. It's not measured by how often someone makes you laugh or how engaging their stories are. What matters is that they're _there_ and that they keep coming back, even if it's all boring anecdotes and silent companionship. 

Truth to be told, there are a lot of things Simmons understands much better since her return. A fair few of them involve Skye. Or, well. Daisy. That one's going to take some getting use to. Point is, loss has a tendency of unearthing the things that really matter. Simmons had a lot of time to think, gain some perspective, face her feelings, all that. 

_Daisy_ is talking a mile a minute about the Inhumans she's met in the time Simmons was away and reports of more potentials, and Simmons doesn't pay close enough attention to keep up with it, hasn't met half the people Daisy's referencing, but that's not important. What matters is that Daisy seems so _happy_ and they're together, this is her voice and her smile and Simmons thought she'd lost that, lost all of them, would never have a chance to set things right, say everything that needed to be said. 

“Daisy,” she interrupts now, trying out the name, the sound and taste of it on her tongue, and finds she likes saying it. What she likes even more is how Daisy immediately abandons her train of thought, honing in on Simmons's face, with concern and curiosity. 

Simmons holds up her hands and tries a weary smile; she didn't mean to worry her. 

And see, she's thought so much about what she'd say, how she'd do this if she'd ever manage to get home, but now she's looking at Daisy, meeting her eyes and that already seems like an incredible, herculean feat. She solved this equation any number of times in her mind, she's sure, absolutely certain, that she's figured this one out and found the best way to phrase what needs to be said. She had a _plan_. This isn't a research paper or a scientific article though, and there's so much more at stake. 

Goddammit. She survived for weeks alone on an alien planet. She can do this, too. 

“I would really like to kiss you,” she blurts out, follows it up with what she knows is an embarrassing, dorky grin, and feels her cheeks grow hot. _Bloody hell._ She looks away, sort of regrets not waiting for a situation that she could walk out of if went south, chides herself for misreading the signs. 

She feels Daisy's hand on her shoulder and nearly squeals in surprise. The chair by the bed that Daisy's been sitting on creaks, and then it's happening, soft lips on hers and there's neither art nor urgency to it, a quick little peck to test the waters, but afterwards they're grinning at each other like giant dorks, faces inches apart at an angle that can't be comfortable for Daisy, and yet she doesn't move away. They're sharing the same air, and it's somehow more intimate than the kiss, more meaningful, and it makes Simmons heart flutter in her chest. 

As experiments go, she decides, she'll call this one a success.


End file.
